madlogician

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There are some havens within the civil service for tech types where they are allowed to get on with the job. I used to work in one for some very good years. The problem was that higher management didn't understand...

The link from Stina's book at the top doesn't seem to work for purchases in the UK, the Baen link on the Nightshade site fails and the other links are to US sellers. By connecting directly to the Baen site...

I once swore a mighty vow never to return to the non-Euclidean. In recent years I have repented - it was the year that Eastercon had Charlie as one of four mighty guests that convinced me. These days the room...

I think the hidden whammy in Sheckley's version was that when the demon offered the wish and told the protagonist who his worst enemy was he immediately accepted that he had one and set about doing him harm. Thereby falling...

> the German African Korps ... was not a "political" unit So much so that General Rommel, its famous commander, refused throughout to allow any SS troops within his theatre. Rommel was eventually forced to commit suicide after his involvement...

Rowling, for getting people to read. Bujold, for two new series doing something new (Chalion and the Sharing Knife). The most important book for me personally is 'Paladin of Souls'. The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. I'm a card-carrying Bujold fan but...

Charlie made on interesting prediction that almost no-one has been commenting on: 'What we're going to see is an explosion of new types of game. In addition to current-day MMOs, we're going to see systems that tie into social networks:...

As I get older I've more and more often stayed at hotels the night before travelling out and also on return (especially with return transatlantic flights). At Heathrow and Gatwick I've found that it's well worth paying the extra for...

Turing's original paper introducing his test started with the idea of whether a human operator could determine whether a man or woman was on the other end of the line, then he extended it to telling the difference between a...

I see two practical advantages to having a constitutional monarchy. (1) The head of government is not the head of state. This reduces the prestige of the head of government and makes it harder for them to abuse their powers....

Heinlein's book allows faster-than-light communication. That alone is inconsistent with relativity both special and general - he knows this, and has one of his characters say as much. In his alternate universe, the twin paradox works the same way as...

Ha. Remember I said I was believing the Lib Dems when they said the Tories could not win in Watford? The Tories won in Watford, about 1500 ahead of the Lib Dems, Labour some way behind. A more honest approach...

I'm in Watford, which is a 3-way marginal. My main objective is to keep the Tories out. I was considering a tactical vote for the Lib Dems. The Lib Dems themselves have talked me out of it: (1) their local...

@1: Dying didn't seem to do Stieg Larsson's career any harm... His books are selling, but his literary estate is in dispute between his family and his partner of many years, and there are conflicting accounts as to whether he...

Comment Threads

The Portable Door - Copyright date 2003 The Atrocity Archives - CD 2004 Since Charlie's blogged many times on the length of the publishing pipe from author typing "The End" to "books on shelves" I feel safe in saying that he'd finished writing TAA before anyone who didn't get a proof copy could have read TPD. TPD is more likely to have influenced Jasper Fforde's Dragonslayer trilogy....

"The only discussion system I can think of where threading worked was usenet, and then only because the threading was done by the client software: the likes of trn and then strn and slrn rocked at threading (and scoring, and magic killfiling). I have never met a GUI-based USENET newsreader, in contrast, that wasn't really shit at threading. Bah, humbug." Most discussion forum software didn't seem to come with kill files, which were obviously a much-needed thing even when the Internet had a hundredth as many people on as now....

Trying again because I think Charlie was kind of busy shortly after I posted it. -- Charlie, Where did you get the idea for the hands of glory? I know they're a myth (way to make house breaker's invisible) but how did you get the idea to make laser guns out of them? And use pigeons and monkeys for part sources?...

Not only do I love the Laundry books, but when I read that you'd been influenced by early Len Deighton, I went and read all his never-actually-named-Harry-Palmer books, for which I am also eternally grateful....